Modern Panic IVARTISTS

In alphabetical order[MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED]

Karina Akopyan [Russia]

Karina Akopyan was born in Moscow, Russia into and moved to England at the age of fifteen to finish her education and study art. At that point she was mostly interested in oil painting but later on her interest changed slightly and she started working with gouache and experimenting with other materials. Being torn between fine art and illustration Karina decided to study Illustration because it gave her chance to do more figurative drawing. Karina graduated with degree in Illustration from Kingston University. Her recent work depicts themes of fashion, fetishism and theatre, also featuring a series of drawings and paintings of some of London’s most daring performers. Her figures are abstract, they don’t need to appear to be real figures at all. They are the expression of emotions and states of awareness, made up memories, fears, sex fantasies and secret aspirations. Karina currently lives in London and works as a freelance artist and illustrator. karina-akopyan.com

Celia Arias [Spain]

CELIA ARIAS AND JONATHAN GOSS: MODERN PANIC COLLABORATIONCelia Arias is a multi-disciplinary artist making waves in the underground fashion and art scenes with one-off digital print textile manipulations, hand-crafted costumes and household objects, as well as high-concept mixed media sculptures. These three symbiotic pieces are the first products of a brand new collaboration between herself and an inimitable but previously anonymous artist: JonathanGoss.

Celia Arias and Jonathan Goss are an unlikely artistic pairing. Though both are boundary-pushing sculptors striving to work outside the confines of the system, Celia is firmly ensconced in the shady corners of London – whilst Jonathan long ago abandoned society in favour of a solitary life immersed in the West Country’s wild woods. Celia works primarily with textiles and mixed-media – Jonathan’s main medium is taxidermy and found objects. But after a chance meeting, Ms. Arias was impressed by the craftsmanship of Jonathan’s dark fantasy installation at Boomtown Festival where a dragon spins around through the kinetic power of fire burning inside its belly cage. She was also intrigued by tales of Jonathan’s unadulterated lifestyle in an 11th Century adapted building deep in a Bristol forest. She later ventured to his fantasy abode and observed first hand some of his artwork: raw, highly-skilled naturalistic sculptures comprised of found objects and materials, including dried animals parts. She was also marvelled by the endless collection of antiques and treasures that he has being collecting for the past 13 years.

Inspired by Jonathan’s art and ideology, Celia felt there was scope for a valuable collaboration. Working around a single concept, they would mesh together their clashing aesthetics, imprinting Celia’s otherworldly folk-inspired designs onto Jonathan’s natural-world creations. The result is three imposing artworks for Modern Panic that merge the organic with the fantastic, and the natural with the supernatural. These hybrids express their profound relationship with their mediums and their surroundings. They aim to communicate a political yet mystical view of today’s World.celiaarias.com

Rachael Berry [UK]

Rachael Berry is a contemporary hyperrealist painter from the Isle of Wight.Much of Rachael's work is centered in a provocative and intimate form of portraiture based on close relationships with her sitters, who are often close friends. The two large examples of Rachael's work on display at Modern Panic IV are of subjects diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and OCD and reflect a unsettling and honest approach to capturing something very direct from within the sitter.rachaelberry.wordpress.com

Rhine Bernardino [Philippines]

Rhine Bernardino graduated at the University of the Philippines Diliman with a degree in BA Film and Audio-Visual Communication. She works with conceptual photography, video, and mainly in performance art. She is currently focusing on the use of body in performance art coupled with the exploration of the use of video not just as a form of documentation but also an integral part of the creation process.

She has exhibited her works in Manila, Tokyo, Busan, Ho Chi Minh, and other venues abroad. Together with two artist friends, she co-founded _inventory, an independent, collaboration-based collective.Once in a while, She works freelance for film and TV, mainly on camera and production design department.

Bernardino just finished an artist residency in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and was selected and invited to Warsaw, Poland to be a part of CREATING THROUGH COLLABORATION. Space. Body. Camera. - a unique art workshop conducted by renowned Polish artist Grzegorz Kowalski. Along with this are lined up group exhibitions in Northern America, among others.vimeo.com/rhinebernardino

Eleanor Brereton [UK]

Eleanor Brereton is a Technical Artist based in London. She has recently graduated from Wimbledon College of Art with a BA in Theatre: Technical Arts and Special Effects. Her time at Wimbledon has allowed her to build up a varied skill base in sculpting, moulding and casting, prop and puppet making, paint finishes, and prosthetics.eleanorbrereton.com

Jodhi Brown-Needham [UK]

Jodhi Brown-Needham is a Fine Artist, currently in her last year of Degree at Nottingham Trent University. She has exhibited both locally and internationally specialising in taxidermy and bone articulation. As a conceptual artist her work is underpinned by the boundary between juxtaposing forces, the clash of opposites merging together. She is underpinned by the void between reality and imaginary and the clash of childhood naivety and savage human instinct.

"My influences are first and foremost everything I see, feel and experience, but I've always particularly loved the critical art of museum layout and beauty of natural history. My passion lies in anatomy, the macabre and the eternal bond of life and death. I am underpinned by past eras and styles; I have always been intrigued by glamour, antiquities and the whimsical. I'm drawn in by the captivation of beauty and wealth and fascinated by the ideology of normality in society from different people’s perceptions. I am always drawn to the macabre objects in life; I find beauty in the mundane and the strange. I find the use of physicality to represent psychological concepts interesting. I am captivated by suspense and magic, freezing time and suspending the inevitable. I find my work settles in-between reality and the imaginary, working with humans naivety and innocence. I often use taxidermy and bone within my work as I feel the beauty of life should not be wasted in death, but it is extremely important to me that all my animals die of natural causes before use within my work. "jodhineedham.weebly.com

Jasmine Szu-Ting Chen [Taiwan]

Jazz Szu-Ying Chen is a Taiwanese student residing in London and currently studying a Masters in Art & Science at London's Central Saint Martins.

She specializes in intricate ink drawings and colourful surrealistic paintings. Fine arts aside, she also dabbles in illustration/graphic design, designing for several underground(mainly hardcore and breakcore) music labels such as Sustained Records, Ninja Columbo Records, Meta4 Records, and Our Fucking Jungle Records.

Lorraine Clarke [UK]

Following her Post Graduate in Art & Psychopathology, visual artist Lorraine Clarke lived and worked in Italy for 19 years. Returning to the UK, she co-founded Euroart Studios & Gallery in London in 2002. As Art Director, she has created and curated numerous exhibitions including “Medical Edge”, as well as creating and presenting the “1st Euroart Live Festival”.“My work, taking multiple forms from large installations to small finely crafted collections, incorporating found and made objects, animation and sound, is infused with research into ancient rites and traditions, belief systems and religion, anthropology, aspects of the medical world and the human condition. Since 2002 I have created a body of work expressing my ongoing interest through research into the link between Magic, Medicine and Religion - from the primitive era to the modern day, from the knowledge of the ancient Wise Women to contemporary biomedical advancements and ethical concerns - addressing issues common to every culture and age such as identity, fertility, religion, mortality and sexuality.Through my creative process, transforming materials - often regarded as detritus, into objects of contemplation, new and strange, yet somehow familiar, demonstrating the power of objects to embody the investment of abstract powers, I challenge the viewer to reflect upon what it is we consider human, what organic, what manufactured, what magical”.Lorraine Clarke has exhibited internationally and is recipient of funding from the Arts Council England for the Arts in 2006 and The Juliet Gomperts Trust in 2007. In November 2010 her extraordinary book "Fertility Dolls", with foreward by renowned and published poet, sculptor and performance artist Brian Catling, was published.clarke-art.co.uk

Laura Dron [UK]

Laura Dron continued her art and writing through a varied career and motherhood, managing to exhibit and sell whenever she produced work. After becoming an internationally published award-winning author children's author under her maiden name, Dron has recently been able to concentrate once more on her art.

"I took part in Bridport and West Dorset Open Studios in 2012, launched my work online and encouraged by response, will offer another Open Studio this year and seek out opportunities to exhibit outside Dorset. I'm inspired by my locality but my new work moves towards other, wider themes which impassion me."seasky.bigcartel.com/backstory

Ant Earls [France]

Ant Earls is a Nantes based multimedia artist born English in a French environment. After getting a BA in Graphic Design she then passed her BFA at the Bordeaux School of Art in June 2012. She is now living and working in Nantes both pursuing her Masters and creating collectively with groups of LGBTQ creatives, event & party organizers, young French artists and Djs.

Her work brings together video, words, painting, sculpture, writing, collage and couture in fragmented visual ensembles. These image/media compositions aim to deconstruct subcultural and mainstream language forms through Installation pieces or series of word/image collages.

She uses form and art making as a hybrid experience, an assemblage of raw elements (images, actions, rhythms, words, and décors) so as to create impure, unsafe, chaotic and hybrid sensual experiences and environments. These fiction pieces attempt to unhinge surreal perceptions of objects and subjects, and question how one connects to art content through ambiguous virtual/non virtual "montages".

Omer Gal [Israel]

Omer Gal is an international artist, he has shown his work extensively in San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Israel, Toronto, Canada, Rome, Italy, Brazil, UK and Finland. He recently graduated with his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, he received his BFA from Minshar school for Art in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Along with Omer’s art comes his music and sound work, which he incorporates, into performance, animation and video. His musical project “Cookie Tongue”, started in 2011 and has performed in front of many audiences. Currently Cookie Tongue is recording its first LP Studio album in SF.

The newest of Omer’s short stop motion animation works “SAP” is being shown at Guerilla Zoo's Modern Panic IV in London this Fall. “Shoreline” (2d animation, 2010) and “Rabbit Rabbit” (stop motion, 2009) have been shown over the past years at many festivals and galleries. omergal.com

Miles Glyn [UK]

Mythical, Phantasmagoric and Visceral, Beauty softens the strength of the images, Weird colours of twilight and dusk . . . ."I create small sculptures, from these I make moulds and then cast, combining dyes and metal powders with the resin. Later they are stained with inky paints, glittering jem like eyes are set into sockets. Cascades of beads are laced into the severed stumps of hands and heads, then chains to bind, creating enthralling one off pieces. Fantastical beasts, Monsters and Mysterious Gifts, Ancient Myth, Fairy Tales meet Science Fiction . . . . and Fact ? . . . My daughter inhabits a world of magical fantasy, through her wonderment and my art making I reconnect . . . . . . . . .www.strange-loop.com

Anita Goldstein [Israel]

Anita Goldstein is a Tel-Aviv born artist living and working in Cambridge U.K.

Her works have been exhibited in group exhibitions (Ramat-Gan Museum in Tel-Aviv, Design Festa in Tokyo, Art Salon in Cambridge U.K., Changing Spaces in Cambridge U.K., Brick Lane in London and The Other Art Fair in London.

Barry Hale [UK]

Barry Hale's past work encompasses avant garde and narrative film, surrealist fiction, video installation, rock music promo videos and TV drama. His audio and visual works have been released on Iris Light, Beggar's Banquet, Creation, Cold Spring and other independent record labels. His installation work has featured in the Wire, Cabinet, Thames & Hudson's Installation Art in the new Millennium and others.

Barry’s work has had numerous international screenings and exhibitions, from Las Vegas to Latvia, MTV to the BBC, Beijing to Birmingham, from the ICA to the Stubnitz. Barry is currently exploring stereoscopic and immersive 3D production, based at Northampton's N-Vision 3D Lab with Threshold Studios, the company he founded in 1998 with business partner Uzma Johal. Barry and Uzma are Festival Directors of Frequency; Lincoln's Festival of Digital Culture.

Since 1997 Barry has also collaborated with Joe Banks' Disinformation project and, as a member of ECM 323, Barry's Intraference project features in Nicholas d'Olivera's Installation Art in the New Millennium (Thames & Hudson 2003). Beginning in 1982, Barry's first super 8 films engendered dream states through the use of collage, multiple projection and flicker, translating the literary ideas of Ballard and Burroughs to the screen. In the late eighties he was Producer on a number of music videos for Glass, Beggar's Banquet and Creation Records before studying film at University of Westminster and the Northern Film School. His more recent work attempts to dilate time and to blur the barriers between dream and reality, past and present, the perceived and the imagined.www.thresholdstudios.tv | 633D.org

Mr Von Hugo [UK]

Mr Von Hugo is a creative tour de force and flâneur, a demi-rep aesthete and idiot savant. His enthusiastic and dynamic creative endeavour is the stuff of 'legend', where misguided individuals battle to overcome trials and tribulations for the betterment of the world at large.

By day Mr Von Hugo uses his creativity to explore and articulate some of the darker recesses of our fears and desires, while by night he is a chronicler of the dark underbelly of the thriving performance scene that exists in this great city of London.

Following a classic English education in London and Oxford he gained a degree from The Chelsea School of Art. Since then he has honed his craft in extensive creative fields all over the world - Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Milan, Mumbai, Hong Kong and Beijing. Elegant and eloquent creative solutions that are toxic and intellectually sticky are Mr Von Hugo's stock of trade and one he deftly and indelibly applies to circumstances, people, products and businesses - He calls it '...the art of making modern legends' MrVonHugo.com

Pernilla Iggstrom [Sweden]

Pernilla Iggstrom is a Swedish visual artist, based in London. She was born in Korea, grew up in Sweden, and has lived overseas for over seventeen years. Pernilla worked many years in the corporate and entrepreneurial environment both in Europe and Asia before she realised her life long dream of being an artist. In 2011 she completed her BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting from City & Guilds of London Art School.Pernilla’s art practice is influenced by her multicultural background - she is interested in the sociocultural element and explores the notions of identity through her work. The starting point is usually photos from her family albums. ‘The painting process allows me to expand the potential of my ideas – reducing some of the overly specific imagery to something more universally accessible. My personal story is of course core, as it motivated my investigations into notions of identity, but there are also far reaching aspects to what I am saying that I want to address.’The communication between the interior and exterior, the past and the present, and the physical and the psychological, are key elements which tension is expressed in the contrasts between the flat colour ground and the impasto oil paint. The paint becomes skin, a porous membrane that communicates between the inner and outer self. Pernilla’s work has appeared in numerous shows and can be found in public and private collections in England and Sweden.pernillaiggstrom.com

Orli Ivanov [Russia]

As a child I have had an opportunity to live in Siberia, Lithuania and Israel before the family settlers in the UK where I studied Art.

My approach to sculpture centers around mortality, it captures the conflict between material disintegration and intellectual fortitude. The mind, subjected to the needs of the primordial body, drowns in desperation.

The inability to exist beyond it’s primitive self impede the unremitting pursuit towards enlightenment. My work immortalizes the momentary, the suppressed and the impulsive. orliivanov.com

Alejandro Jodorowsky [Chile]

Alejandro Jodorowsky ( born 17 February 1929) is a Chilean-French filmmaker, playwright, actor, author, musician, comics writer and spiritual guru. Best known for his avant-garde films, he has been "venerated by cult cinema enthusiasts" for his work which "is filled with violently surreal images and a hybrid blend of mysticism and religious provocation."Born to Jewish Ukrainian parents in Chile, Jodorowsky experienced an unhappy and alienated childhood, and so immersed himself in reading and writing poetry. Dropping out of college, he became involved in theatre and in particular mime, working as a clown before founding his own theatre troupe, the Teatro Mimico, in 1947. Moving to Paris in the early 1950s, Jodorowsky studied mime under Étienne Decroux before turning to cinema, directing the short film Les têtes interverties in 1957. From 1960 he divided his time between Paris and Mexico City, in the former becoming a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. In 1966 he created his first comic strip, Anibal 5, whilst in 1967 he directed his first feature film, the surrealist Fando y Lis, which caused a huge scandal in Mexico, eventually being banned.His next film, the acid western El Topo (1970), became a hit on the midnight movie circuit in the United States, considered as the first-ever midnight cult film, leading rockstar John Lennon to provide Jodorowsky with $1 million to finance his next film. The result was The Holy Mountain (1973), a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. Disagreements with the film's distributor Allen Klein, however, led to both The Holy Mountain and El Topo failing to gain widespread distribution, although both became classics on the underground film circuit.After a botched attempt at filming Frank Herbert's novel Dune, Jodorowsky produced three more films, the family film Tusk (1980), the surrealist horror Santa Sangre (1989) and the failed blockbuster The Rainbow Thief (1990). Since then, he has completed work on his latest film The Dance of Reality, a surreal biopic based on his early days in Chile. The film was launched to great critical response at this year's Cannes Film Festival, international release dates to be confirmed. He has simultaneously written a many series of comics and graphic novels since the 60s, most notably The Incal (1981–1989), which has been described as having a claim to be "the best comic book" ever written, but also Technopriests and Metabarons. Accompanying this, he has also written books and regularly lectures on his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism" and which borrows from his interests in alchemy, the Tarot, Zen Buddhism and shamanism. His son Cristóbal has followed his teachings on psychoshamanism. This work is captured in the feature documentary Quantum Men, directed by Carlos Serrano Azcona. Alejandro is also the father of musician Adan Jodorowsky or Adanowsky

We will be featuring some exclusive of Alejandro Jodorowsky's rare early Mexican comic work at Modern Panic IV.More information on Alejandro Jodorowsky

Sulaiman Majali [UK]

Graduating from Fine Art Sculpture at University of Brighton, Sulaiman Majali has worked with photography, traditional sculptural processes, textiles, film and performance, working outside the perceived framework of 'sculpture' he uses the broad and evolving definitions of sculpture to find and develop his own practice, he has exhibited locally and internationally.

Sulaiman Majali's practice has evolved to investigate diasporic space; a conceptual space between points of belonging. Often abruptly influenced by direct personal experiences, which have either questioned or reinforced a personal/local identity within political/global frameworks, Sulaiman Majali's practice has emerged from an engagement with and interest in the shifting boundaries of culture and civilisations. His implication in this discourse stems from a dual heritage. Growing from a cultural "third-space" his practice reacts to a continual and simultaneous feeling of both loss and discovery of cultural identity; this has produced works that have acknowledged both the internal (as personal) and the external (as political) aspects of Otherness.

In his recent video work, these ideas come together to explore object, narrative and symbolism. Within the perpetual loss and discovery of identity, lies the conflict and struggle for an "authentic" cultural identity as both Arab and British. It is this state of transformation, distortion and transition that nurtures a process of abstraction, which, in the white space of the middle-ground, unfolds to question notions of belonging. Commenting on a wider complex interplay between two cultures and two global civilisations, the film explores the role of narrative and symbolism in the location of cultural identity within a mixed European-Arab heritage. Meditating on key symbolic gestures, the film is composed of performative actions and ritualistic undertones where faceless characters present themselves as symbols of the veiled and unfamiliar, becoming metaphors for the cultural 'other'.

"I believe cultural hybridity is a catalyst, reorienting the boundaries of civilisations and cultures by which we define others and ourselves."smajali.co.uk

Manuel and Max [Austria]

The Riot Raki may appear to look like a common bottle of Raki, a popular anise-flavoured hard alcohol in Turkey, but it has been given a rebellious makeover. Inspired by the increasing civil disorder gripping the streets of Turkey, the Riot Raki is essentially a molotov cocktail kit. The label, which is cloth instead of paper, easily peels off in order to be stuffed into the neck of the bottle and lit as an incendiary weapon.

Created by artist duo Manuel Urbanke and Maximilian Hoch, the Riot Raki also reflects the current alcohol debate taking place in Turkey. A clever concept through and through, it is not only socially aware, it is also well-designed. People will be attracted to the Riot Raki for a few reasons.

"We wanted to address the ongoing civil disorder in Turkey and show that the power is still with the people. It's not meant to serve as a weapon but as a reminder for the Turkish citizens."

Maximilian Hoch and Manuel Urbanke are creative team based in Hamburg/Germany. The pair met four years ago met in Moscow and have worked together ever since. Manuel and Max strive to produce conceptual work in both, art and advertising.ma-ma.me

Iyvone Khoo [Singapore]

Iyvone Khoo graduated in 2012 from Central Saint Martins with a Masters in Fine Art. She is a Singaporean artist, living and working in London.

Iyvone's work examines perception through the experience of “looking”, revealed through the lens when a situation is posed or a theme metaphorically explored. Her work attempts to capture the intangible nature of her immediate surroundings, often involving people, places and animals.

She works with video and Light to create installations, explored through her experiences of living in “impermanence rather than finality”. She has exhibited in Italy, UK and Singapore. Iyvone is a recipient of the Mead Fellowship from the University of Arts London.

Dominic Negus [UK]

"At 22, due to self-loathing, I took an overdose of pills. Triggered by conversations with a friend who has an ever-growing fascination with suicide, this piece investigates life and death instincts. Exploring self-destruction and self-preservation. The death of my father two years ago prompted a career change. I have been making occasional works for a number of years and after his death I started my art practice full time.

His death acutely affected my feeling towards dying and my own mortality. My work follows an overarching theme using a breadth of media and an academic interest in the Psychology of death, it is deeply personal yet universal and invites others to reflect on their own experiences of loss. I have used flowers for their beauty and frailty as motifs of the human condition. This piece forms part of a larger collection of works under the same narrative."dominicnegus.com

Buddy Nestor [USA]

Buddy was born and raised in Collingswood, New Jersey, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a Latch-Key Kid during the birth of cable TV. This led to endless hours in front of the television, watching movies and drawing. He gravitated toward strange cult and horror films. As a skateboarder in the late 80’s and early 90’s, he was exposed to Punk, Indie, and Heavy Metal music. In 1997, after the birth of his son, Buddy decided to teach himself to paint. In 1999, he traveled around the world on an aircraft carrier and painted every day. This was critical in his development as an artist. Presently, he drinks beer and paints in his basement. “My latest series of paintings are portraits of female artists. These physical and psychological images are my attempt to capture the true nature of humanity. They are spiritual X-Rays. The models that I use in my work are all beautiful women. However, there is nothing beautiful about the portraits I create.” buddynestorartwork.com

Michela Nicchiotti [Italy]

Michela Nicchiotti is from Italy and moved to London few years ago.

She currently works as Creative / Art Director and has a spontaneous passion for digital media. She studied Communication Science and New Media and has graduated with an MA in Design and Art Direction.

She also does Illustration and Photography, has recently found interest on Filmmaking.michelanicchiotti.com

Nihil [France]

Nihil is a writer, photographer and digital artist based in Paris

Nihil is currently developping a dark, mystic anticipation fiction called "Ventre", a highly dystopian and apocalyptic universe, inspired by ancient sacred texts (the book of Revelations, Edda, Upanishads...)

The images he creates (along with the texts and performances I write) are inspired from this fiction world, seeking a real coherence. He is an autodidact for everything he does and finds inspiration in religious texts and previous episodes of his life in hospitals and medical research centres. Nihil also work on identity and search for individuality. He has had three solo shows in Paris and Berlin galleries this last year, and collective shows in USA, Belgium, Germany and France.

Nihil's performance 'L'éveil' was played several times in Paris theaters with hundreds of spectators. His artworks appeared in several publications (Virus Magazine, Metal Hammer, Royal Shakespeare Compagny...) and artbooks. He works in collaboration with artists such as Matt Lombard and Daria Endresen.nihil.fr

Bobby Nixon [UK]

Born in the Scottish Borders in 1989. Bobby graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2010 and has since exhibited work nationally and abroad. Recent projects include a residency at the University of Birmingham, Artvend in Leeds and participation in the Moot Art and Music Festival in Kilkenny.www.bobbynixon.blogspot.co.uk

Annabel de Vetten-Peterson [UK]

Retiring from a very successful painting career several years ago, Annabel set her sights on the growing world of cake art. Her unique work immediately grabbed the food and art world's attention. Her devilish sense of humour and macabre leanings have made her cakes a favourite among celebrities, as well as television and movie promoters.

Her work has been featured on television and in print all over the world, as well as earning a prominent position in "Ripley's Believe it or Not."ConjurersKitchen.com

Hermes Pittakos [Cyprus]

Hermes Pittakos was born in Cyprus. With a background in Fine art, He has graduated from London College of Fashion with a BA in Make-up and Prosthetics for Performance in 2012. He has been trained in Character Design, Special FX Makeup, Prosthetics and Wig Making.

Hermes draws from a wide range of influences: from surreal imagery and fairy tails to myths, mysticism and cult cinema. In particular He draws inspiration from the characteristics of the people who surround him in his every day life.

‘Hollow Bone' is a short film written and directed by Hermes Pittakos showcasing his unique Character design & creation skills through the art of makeup, special effects and prosthetics for performance. The film follows an unnamed protagonist (played by Ron Athey) on a strange journey into his subconscious and imagination through a series of occult ritualistic scenes and surreal characters. Each scene depicts a separate world within the characters psyche and each world is inspired by one of the four elements: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Hermes has been inspired by Shamanic journeys, dreams and the subconscious mind, as well as the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Kenneth Anger, to create a fictional world of mythological beings, ancient rituals, and surreal elements…hermespittakos.com

Jenny Pyrah [UK]

'I make work in response to issues I feel are important and need to be discussed. Much of my current work explores the over indulgence of media, the reliance we have upon it and the way our ideas and opinions can be change by it.I am also interested in the way people in power can affect our lives, changing and manipulating it without our consent, their greed and hunger for oil, money and more power. I use imagery of children in my work as I feel they represent innocence and humanity.

Although my work stems from serious issues,it always remains playful and accessible. I believe this comes from my style of working; mixing traditional sculpting techniques with less tradition techniques and use of materials. I make work because I like to and have the ideas to, my work is never produced to force an issue, just to discuss one.'jennypyrah.wix.com/jennypyrah

Diego Ramirez [Mexico]

Diego Ramirez (Mexico, 1989) is an artist working primarily with live action video and animation. His work is driven by a thematic interest in identity, the body and mass media.

In 2013 his work will be exhibited at the Redlands Konica Minolta Art Prize (Sydney, Australia), WRO 15th Media Art Biennale (Wroclaw, Poland), Torrance Art Museum (L.A., USA) and screened in the Currents Santa Fe International New Media Festival New Mx, USA), Boston Underground Film Festival (USA), Byron Bay International Film Festival (Australia), and International Video Art Review (Krakow, Poland).

In the past his work has been exhibited locally in solo shows at Kings ARI, Frist Site Gallery and RMIT School of Art Gallery and screened internationally at film/video festivals including Spain, Mexico, Canada, France, Argentina, USA, Bulgaria, Poland and UK.diego-ramirez.net

Erik Ravelo [Cuba]

Erik Ravelo is a Cuban sculptor, painter and multi media-artist. He is currently a creative director at Fabrica, the communications agency owned by the Benetton Group in Treviso, Italy.

His campaigns for Benetton include "Unhate" which featured the controversial images of world leaders kissing. He was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2012 for this series. His other projects include Lana Sutra, The Unhate Dove and the Doping Thrower. From 2007-2011 he was the Creative Director of Colors Magazine.

His work has been published internationally and exhibited around the world. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1978 and studied art there at the Accademia Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro. When he was 18 he escaped Cuba to Argentina to persue his dreams of working freely as an artist.erikravelo.info

Jay Rechsteiner [Switzerland]

Jay Rechsteiner is a multi-disciplinary & conceptual Swiss artist based in London. Anarchic and political themes, tackled with a sense of the ridiculous are central to Rechsteiner's practice.

He has exhibited internationally (Japan, USA, UK, Switzerland, Italy, Portugal, France) in galleries and museums such as the Fukuoka Art Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Tate Liverpool, the London Art Fair & the Venice Biennale.

In 2005 Rechsteiner joined forces with Portuguese Punk musician Victor 'Torpedo' Silveira and together they started working under the pseudonym Sardine & Tobleroni. After an intensive and creative five-year period, the collaboration ended and Rechsteiner began a new body of work. jayrechsteiner.com

Elizabeth Sandford Richardson [UK]

Born in London, Elizabeth is a Performance artist working with a cross range of mediums, including experimental darkroom photography ‘Performergrams’ Lenticulars, and Holography. Emerging from the underground Cabaret scene in London.

Influenced by artist Many Ray and Moholy Nahagy, Elizabeth studied at Central Saint Martins Collage of Art. Her performance captures the idea of photography, subsequently refining her own visual and conceptual vocabulary that emerged through her focus on using holography and lenticulars performativity. Challenging the notion of what can be seen as a performance space.

Elizabeth’s work can be found across London of public and private art gallery’s. Currently holding monthly events at The Vibe Gallery, Bermondsey, and performing across the UK within The Late Night Shop Collective. She currently lives and works in London, UK.

Bruce Rimell [UK]

Bruce Rimell is visionary artist based in the twin cities of Leeds-Bradford in the north of theUK. His work springs from a fusion of his own personal visions, archaeological and mythological prehistories, and inner images of archaic, paradisical and psychedelic humanity.

His vibrant and distinctive style enfolds the ancient and modern, recalling as much Aboriginal textures, Mayan codices and Minoan frescos as it does contemporary forms.

Each work is an act of archaeological research, mythological exploration and visionary journey which grounds the image in a human authenticity. His artistic quest is to seek and express direct communion with the deepest essences of the living and sacred human being: Come and see, and look within. What will you find?biroz.net

Le Roy [Holland]

Le Roy's paintings are trying to portray the fragility and illusion of existence , the knowledge that life, after the illusions and distractions are swept away , is one in which we are all ultimately alone in our bodies and death is the one companion that will follow us to the very end where the bodies we are trapped in during life will corrupt and reveal the calcium prison , so beautiful and yet so clearly recognisable as the absence of life.

'John Currin's shrill, elongated harpies are another background presence, touched too in a different way from Freud with Old master allusions - notable in le Roy's "Sandra".' - Jackie Wullschlager Financial Times September 2009

Rachel Sheppard [UK]

Rachel Sheppard is a freelance prop maker based in London. Her past work has involved making props and puppets for live theatre and events. More recently she has been producing window display pieces for luxury brands. Rachel also has a working studio where she takes on commissions of all kinds. Please see her website rachelsheppard.com for further works and contact details.rachelsheppard.com

Lucy Sparrow [UK]

Lucy Sparrow is a visual artist currently based in the UK. She works mainly with felt and wool to create over-sized soft versions of existing objects which, when placed in different surroundings, convey an altogether fantastical approach to life. This playful affection she has with her work relieves the conditions that are often put upon artists to produce something deeply profound and monumental.

Lucy’s ‘Feltism’ plays on the distorted scale of childhood and the dreamlike quality to textures. Whilst taking a walk through the surreal fabric landscape where giant sardines lollop next to an innocently blunt pen-knife, the land of the soft conquers the harshness of a sharp edged reality. The subject matter that she uses with her work is often one that provokes nostalgia and a wish for all things to remain unharmful; a kind of felt Utopia if you like.

She has exhibited extensively throughout the UK and had her first solo show, ‘Imitation’ at Hoxton Gallery in early 2012 which included felt parodies of the world’s most famous artworks recreated in felt with a cynical twist.sewyoursoul.co.uk

Paul Toupet [France]

Paul Toupet is a designer who was born in 1979 in Paris. Trained at the famous Penninghen art school and at the Workshop of Fine-Arts of Glacière in Paris, Paul Toupet has worked on the theme of human representation since 1996.Since May 1999, he displays his very particular and resolutely modern “Wax Puppets”: nucleated eyes, mouths vomiting braids, dressed in torn tissue or feathers, at a human or a child scale…His art sometimes evokes childhood, sometimes mummies, the charred bodies of Pompeii, it revisits African art or religious art.

The work of Paul Toupet is the fruit of multiple influences which are mixed and embezzle to create a poetic or provocating , a peaceful or scary world, according to the spectator’s gaze. He is inspired by this artificial creature which have many anatomics possibilities. His work aims at transcribing a pure act of creation by the means of the unconscious which is expressed by the body. The Dolls of Paul Toupet seem to be out of time. This hybrid being would be involved in the formation of an intangible universe. Inanimate, almost eternal, it belongs to the uncanny but it is not devoid of a certain humor, even of a touch of burlesque. Dolls are spatial and temporal representations of the mores and folklore of a society.They materialise a certain conception of desire and phantasm.

Paul Toupet pushes the spectator’s visual limits, revealing the fears, phantasm and morals of our societies.His art evolves thanks to his own enrichment but also thanks to artistic collaborations.For that reason, we can notice several periods in his work:From 1996 to 2002 he used antic dolls made of raw material. Indeed, he attaches great importance to the fact that they must look alive as if they had a soul. With his transformations, Paul Toupet gives a new life to these « abandoned dolls ». They are presented in boxes, which evoke both a coffin and a universe of their own.

From 2002 to 2012, he worked on human-scaled sculpture. He changed his technique and created characters entirely made of paper mache, wax and tissues.By confronting spectators to a work of their size, Paul Toupet tries to confront them to their own fears and invite them to look inside themselves. He also collaborated with artists such as the singer-performer-artist Lydia Lunch or the painter Axel Kriloff.Paul Toupet also works for the theatre by creating settings. One of his mask was displayed at the “Théâtre du Rond-Point” in the performance of the « Comptine du Petit Bal Perdu » by France de Griessen, which was presented at the occasion of the »Grand Mezze » in December 2003. He has made all the settings and accessories for the musical show « Billy » by Teen Machine. He also made a puppet at a human scale for the show « Hell » of Inex Compagnie and a series of fantastic animal masks for the music band Cut in which he also plays the guitar.paultoupet.fr

Zilvinas Vaitiekunas [Lithuania]

Zilvinas Vaitiekunas is originally from Lithuania but now living in London.

He has been drawing since I was a child but never attended any art school or university. At the secondary school he met two great and respected art teachers and artists Andrius Mosiejus and Virginijus Sutkus who were supported his work and let him "just draw whatever would come to my mind."

Influenced by many well known artists from the past like Picasso, Dali, Mattise, etc. Zilvinas sees their art as the result of an unconscious mind. "Since last year I really got in to my higher self in other words consciousness that connects everything around us. So in most of my pictures thought is not involved. All forms and feelings comes from still unknown source. That is why I really got into my work and I love exploring it. People should see what they want to see in my art because I think it helps to find out more about yourself and the world that surround us."

VortMan [USA]

10/2/13 23:38 : Greetings from Salt Lake City Utah. I moved here 18 months ago; it’s not as bad as you think. I’ve been making art full time since 2006. I try to make art every day. I want to get my work out of here. I don’t care if it ends up in bathrooms or bedrooms. At the end of the day, I make art and I want people to enjoy my work. Find something you are passionate about and do it as much as you can. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? Don’t Panic. (He even has a pizza named after him)thevortman.com

Lauren Jane Williams [UK]

Lauren Jane Williams is a Fine Art (sculpture/installation) graduate with an MA Costume for Performance (London College of Fashion) and personally interested in the notion of the blurred boundaries between costume, flesh and the internal and external body and its transformative potential within a performance and filmic context. Issues of gender, warped sexuality, surrealism, the explicit and visceral body, baroque excess, and decay inform her current practice.

The conceptual notion of the ‘body’ becoming ‘costume’ and ‘costume’ becoming ‘body’ inspires her current costume based performance practice, through exploring viscerally the blurred boundaries of where body and costume become one; a site of metamorphic, transformative, hybrid symbiotic potential within a performance context.

Trystan Williams [UK]

Trystan Williams graduated from Camberwell College of Arts in 2007 and since has have tried to keep up an artistic practice whilst also working a wide variety of "normal" jobs. He studied Fine Art Painting but in the past year made a shift to this more conceptual and engaging work.

He has recently exhibited at the L Gallery in the Wieden and Kennedy building in April and worked at The Big Noise Festival in The Bussey Building (a mini festival in aid of the Big Issue Foundation).

Trystan is fully committed to his practice and is continually making new work. The 'Slate Thread' is an ongoing project.trystanwilliams.com

Yuri Zupančič [USA]

Born 1980 and largely self-taught, Yuri has been exhibiting / performing since 1997, curating since 2005. Raised in Dodge City, he spent formative years in Lawrence, Kansas.

Lawrence is home base, but much of his life is spent abroad. Yuri has created and exhibited art in Lawrence, Kansas City, Denver & Boulder CO, Paris FR, London UK, Berlin DE, Sydney & Brisbane AU, Wellington NZ, and Split HR.

Les Fleurs Du Mal & Sven Arnstein

A faerytale fashion film exploring the frailty of the human psyche, based on 3 cards in the Tarot- XXI, XV, XIII.. A Dancer falls in love with Death, & follows him through his mind into a cave, an intricate, cthonic world of dreams and illusions where her only companion is a trickster, a harlequin, an old man... When Death turns on his lover the light breaks into a dance, the shadows fall away as the world catches fire.